I'm nearly tempted to give "Phone Calls from the Dead" a couple of extra stars for what might be the best paranormal title in the history of publishing. Certainly, this insane and vastly entertaining non-examination of long-long-distance calls from The Land Beyond Area Codes deserves some credit for being a fun read. And the book is educational in its own way as a marvelous study in the practice of leaping (connecting?) to elaborate conclusions based on no evidence whatsoever. So maybe I should be kinder in my rating. It's a tough call.

Anyway, in this book we learn about "Theta-agents" contacting the living via telephone to give cryptic messages on behalf of the (usually) recently departed. We learn about living people sometimes placing phone calls without actually placing them. (I wonder what those look like when the bill arrives?) And we are presented with alternate theories, none of which I can reCALL at the moment. Paranormal writers always present a variety of theories, possibly in the hope that the reader will not get hung up on any one theory. And, in keeping with the paranormal party line, these authors don't hesitate to suggest that any or all criticism of their views is off-line. Obviously, we are to free our minds of any critical static as they ring in one theory after another.

Crank literature can be tedious, but this book flows quite smoothly, with a serious and busy tone that contrasts greatly with the sheer lunacy of the material. I eagerly await "Crank Calls from the Dead" and "Phantom Telemarketers." And I hope no one from beyond ever calls me collect.

If you are a non believer, this book will not change your mind. I have been studying many things dealing with parapsychology. The "proof" they have in here isn't very convincing. Also, it's not very interesting. I gave it one star because I couldn't choose zero.

"This book has been extremely difficult to draft since it concerns a subject upon which nothing was previously been written" note the writers in 1979 in their acknowledgments though this is actually not quite true:The first contacts from beyond via telephone were described in detail in a book entitled "Voices from Beyond by Telephone" written by the Brazilian Carlos G. Ramos under the pen-name Oscar D'Argonell in 1925.However these two books seem to be the only ones written exclusively about an object that -among many others- gained the attention of writers who were involved in ADC [After Death Communication] phenomena and was included -wrongly to my opinion-in the research field of ITC. [Instrumental Transcommunication] The cases examined by the authors in the book -without estimating the statistical details-are less than one might expect, about 10-15 but were analysed accurately and intensively. Notable also is the element of spectacular coincidences related with the cases mentioned and can not be ignored. In order to approach an explanation about paranormal Telephony the writers examine three theories:The spiritistic or survival theory,"to begin with, we of course felt that these alleged phone manipulations might indeed be masterminded by the dead during attempts to contact us",the EDB [extradimensional being] theory "however we could not dismiss the possibility that some other types of paraphysical or extradimensional being-perhaps invisible denizens which co-inhabit the Earth with us or exist in some parallel universe- might be playing a huge cosmic joke on us..such beings might be endowed with the ability to manipulate our phone system and mimic the voices of the dead" and finally the PK [psychokinetik]-from the living theory."Finally we also thought that the witnesses themselves might be unwittingly manufacturing these calls through their own innate mind-over-matter [or psychokinetic] abilities." [Chapter 4.The source of the calls I. Problems and possibilities]The calls themselves are collected into the following categories: 1."crisis" calls , received within 24 hours of the caller's death,2.postmortem calls, received within 7 days after death 3,4,5. calls within 30 days,from 2 to 6 months and after 6 months. The authors also try to explain the "Mechanics of the Calls" [Chapter 6] which seems to be the most difficult of all. "To date unfortunately no phantom caller has ever explained to his bewildered listener just how he produced his call so all we can do is guess" Their remarks though are interesting indeed. They examine two different theories , the electromagnetic theory "If these calls are incoming signals, then the phantom telephone voices would have to be an electromagnetic phenomenon...our witnesses really heard only a pattern of electrical oscillations that imitated human speech." and the paraphysical theory "if however these voices are somehow being produced over or within the specific instruments on which they are received , their nature might be different...they might be some sort of human speech or "independent voice"..speaking directly over the amplifier in the receiver." The authors also include in their book a chapter about the history of EVP [Electronic Voice Phenomena]that is to my opinion -regardless of the informations reported- a mistake of them,[Electronic contact with the dead:A wider Perspective Chapter 8.]since the reader might be confused with informations that don't have to do a lot with the object of the book.Last but not the least in their last chapter [Appendix: some critic of the evidence] the authors don't hesitate and that is to their honour to include in their book the critique of others about their work , though it seems that some of it is against them!"after completing the first major draft of this volume copies were sent to three well known and highly respected parapsychologists , each of whom agreed to write some comments for us.[Dr.Gertrude Schmeidler, Dr.John Palmer and Dr John Beloff.] D. Scott Rogo who unfortunately was brutally murdered on 16 August 1990 and ever since did not communicate with nobody in this mortal world by the phone ,together with his colleague Raymond Bayless seemed to know very well the difficulties of their attempt to explain this paranormal phenomenon. Their investigations lasted two years and reading them is no loss of time. More than two decades later uncountable writers mention their book to their bibliography about several paranormal phenomena mostly related with EVP and ITC investigations. I would like not to write and publish all this , something that it was found out to be against my best will but a review i read about that book to my opinion was completely unfair.Anyway the book is so rare now that the continuation of publishing opinions seems to be hardly expected.